Skepticism and the Cartesian Circle

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Skepticism and the Cartesian CircleAuthor(s): Janet BroughtonSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec., 1984), pp. 593-615Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231391 .

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY Volume XIV, Number 4, December 1984

Skepticism and the Cartesian Circle

JANET BROUGHTON, University of California, Berkeley

I

Perhaps the most venerable objection to Descartes' Meditations is the charge that Descartes argues in a circle when he tries to show that his clear and distinct perceptions are true. Arnauld and others raised this objection to Descartes himself, and Descartes' reply to them, far from clear- ing the matter up, seems to be entirely unresponsive to their criticism. There has since grown an enormous literature about what is often called the Cartesian Circle, partly because in interpreting the work of someone as important as Descartes we feel obliged to try to read him so that he is not making a patent blunder, and partly because seeing whether a project like Descartes' is doomed from the start is of intrinsic philosophical in- terest. But the size of this literature alone suggests how complex and difficult the interpretative and philosophical issues surrounding the Circle are.

The Circle arises when Descartes tries to secure knowledge against the skeptic within him. It is obviously important to see what Descartes

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thinks 'securing knowledge' comes to, and recently several interpreters of Descartes have tried to do that by focusing their attention on what Descartes thinks the skeptic may and may not do. Both Alan Gewirth1 and Harry Frankfurt2 have taken this tack, with interesting results, and part of what I want to do in this paper is to evaluate the sort of interpretation they have come up with. First, I will sketch out the interpretation from which the classical objection arises, and then I will critically discuss the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation. Finally, in the second half of this paper, I want to try out an interpretation I think is a little more successful.

II

Before I sketch the problem, let me make a few disclaimers. I will not be discussing the question why, in response to Arnauld and others, Descartes talks about memory. And I am not going to try to characterize clarity and distinctness. Let me simply say that for Descartes a clear and distinct perception is not one you just have a good feeling about; it is a perception you have as the result of rational insight or of careful rational reflection.3 The idealized procedure of a working mathematician is as

In these notes, I abbreviate as follows:

AT: Ceuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (Paris: Cerf 1897-1910)

HR: The Philosophical Works of Descartes, ed. Elizabeth Haldane and G.R.T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1972)

K: Descartes: Philosophical Letters, ed. Anthony Kenny (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1970)

DDM: Harry Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers and Madmen (New York: Bobbs-Merrill 1970)

CC: Alan Gewirth, The Cartesian Circle,' Philosophical Review (1941) 368-95

1 In CC. See also Gewirth's The Cartesian Circle Revisited,' The Journal of Philosophy (1970) 668-85.

2 In DDM. See also Frankfurfs Descartes' Validation of Reason,' American Philosophical Quarterly (1965) 149-56.

3 I think the most detailed and convincing discussion of clarity and distinctness appears in Alan Gewirth's 'Clearness and Distinctness in Descartes/ Philosophy (1943) 17-36.

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good an example as any of getting a clear and distinct perception. In- cidentally, to avoid tedious repetition of the phrase 'clear and distinct/ I will use in its place the word 'distinct.' Descartes says that although clear perceptions need not be distinct, distinct perceptions must also be clear.4

What is the Cartesian Circle? The standard version of the problem emerges from a certain interpretation of what Descartes is trying to do in the first three Meditations. The interpretation goes like this: Descartes is

trying to show that his distinct perceptions are true. He thinks that he cannot do this unless he can show that God exists and is not a deceiver. But he cannot show that that is true unless he has shown that the distinct-

ly perceived premises in the proof of it are true. And he cannot do that unless he has already shown that his distinct perceptions are true. And he cannot have done that unless he has already shown that God exists and is not a deceiver.

We can relocate this problem so that it takes on a more specific character. One of the premises in the Third Meditation proof of God's existence and veracity is that a cause must contain what comes about in its effect. Descartes distinctly perceives that this causal principle is true. And as he is distinctly perceiving it, he cannot see how it might be false; he is persuaded it is true and he sees a manifest contradiction in denying it. But as he reflects further, he realizes that there may be an evil demon who has given him such a nature that even when he distinctly perceives something, even when he cannot see how it could fail to be true, it is nonetheless false. In order to remove this shadow of doubt about the causal principle, he needs to show that a good God, not an evil demon, has given him his nature. But to be assured that 'A good God exists' is

true, he must derive it using premises of whose truth he is assured. One of these is the causal principle. But he could be assured about its truth on-

ly if he could already be assured about the truth of 'A good God exists.' I'd like to sketch two ways of putting what has gone wrong here.

First, according to this version of Descartes' project, there is a gap between on the one hand distinctness and certainty, and on the other hand, truth. Now, the certainty which goes with distinctness is at least what some writers have called 'psychological certainty.' This is not only a state of complete conviction but also a state in which one simply cannot enter- tain reasons for doubting what one is perceiving. But in wanting to

bridge the gap, in wanting to connect distinctness with truth, Descartes

4 Principles, I xlvi; HR I 237; AT VIII 22

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wants to be certain in another sense. He wants to be certain in the sense of knowing that there is nothing which makes (could make) what he entertains false. This some writers have called metaphysical certainty/ Crudely put, the difference is supposed to be between these two cases: I cannot think through any reasons to doubt what I am distinctly perceiving; and I can see that there are no reasons to doubt what I am distinctly perceiving.

But - and here is the problem - how can I know that the gap between distinctness and truth is bridged? I must at least have a distinct perception that it is. But the further question remains: How can I know that that distinct perception is true? Only by already knowing that the gap between distinctness and truth is bridged. In short, I need a stand- point I have cut out from under myself.

Here is another way of putting what has gone wrong. Having metaphysical certainty about distinct perceptions is 'seeing' or Toeing assured' or 'showing' that there are no reasons to doubt that they are true, or knowing for certain that there are no reasons to doubt they are true. But what is to count as Icnowing for certain'? Being psychologically certain? Surely not. Being metaphysically certain? Yes, but then one must be metaphysically certain of the following distinct perception: There are no reasons to doubt the truth of distinct perceptions. But one can be metaphysically certain of that distinct perception only if one can already be metaphysically certain that there are no reasons to doubt the truth of distinct perceptions.

Ill

As I said earlier, one way to try to straighten out this Circle is to try to recharacterize what Descartes thinks securing knowledge is, and to do so by looking more closely at the skeptic, by looking at what knowledge needs securing against. Both Gewirth and Frankfurt take this line, and although in other respects their interpretations of Descartes are very different, they agree in thinking that for Descartes the skeptic triumphs only if he produces good reasons to doubt the truth of distinct perceptions. I want to spell out what they both think follows from this. I mean to characterize their approach in terms general enough to cover what both say, despite their enormous disagreements about other matters.5

5 I think what follows clearly characterizes Gewirth's interpretation, but I ought to

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As they have it, Descartes is trying to see whether there are any good reasons to doubt that his distinct perceptions are true. Should he find out that there are no such good reasons, then he will have achieved metaphyscial certainty that his distinct perceptions are true. Now, how does he tell whether there are any such good reasons? One condition the skeptic must meet is that he must offer a reason for doubt which can itself be distinctly perceived. The skeptic can only offer: Perhaps my creator is a deceiver. Descartes counters with the Third Meditation proof that his creator must be perfect and thus no deceiver. He starts with distinctly perceived premises, distinctly perceives their connections with one another and with their conclusion, and thus obtains the distinct perception that his creator is no deceiver. But the point of this proof, or its first point, is that one cannot distinctly perceive that one's creator is a deceiver, because what one distinctly perceives is, on the contrary, that one's creator is veracious.

So the Third Meditation proof conquers the skeptic by showing that the only reason he could offer for doubting the truth of distinct perceptions is not a good reason, is not distinctly perceivable. Once the skeptic is conquered, once we have secured metaphysical certainty about the truth of distinct perceptions, then we can run through the proof again in order to be metaphysically certain of the truth of its conclusion. It is essential to this interpretation to distinguish these two functions of the Third Meditation proof.6 The proof enables us to perceive its conclusion

distinctly, and first we take that to show that the skeptic's hypothesis cannot be distinctly perceived, and thus that it is metaphysically certain that distinct perceptions are true, so that second we can take the proof's distinctly perceived conclusion to be itself metaphyscially certain.

Solving the problem of circularity in this way, by distinguishing two

say why I think it characterizes Frankfurt's. Frankfurt says that the Third Meditation argument for God's existence 'is an attempt to show that there are no

good reasons for believing that reason is unreliable' (DDM, 175). He considers the objection that perhaps 'what we clearly and distinctly perceive is sometimes false even if we can have no reasonable grounds for supposing so' (DDM, 179). He decides, for various reasons, that Descartes thinks this absolute falsity (and absolute truth) are 'irrelevant to the purposes of inquiry. Descartes' account makes it clear that the notion of truth that is relevant is a notion of coherence'

(DDM, 179). I think that what I say in this section applies to Frankfurt (inter-

preting truth as coherence) as well as it does to Gewirth (interpreting truth as

correspondence).

6 See DDM, 176 (middle paragraph) and 177 (first full paragraph), and CC, 393-4.

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functions for the Third Meditation proof, depends on looking at the skeptic in a certain way. Let me try to say more about this.

Descartes will concern himself only with serious skepticism, with Very powerful and maturely considered'7 reasons for doubt. That is, he will not consider the truth of a belief to be called into doubt unless by such a reason. I want to build up a picture of what, on the Frankfurt- Gewirth interpretation, Descartes thinks a serious skeptic (or a good reason) is, by considering some conditions or standards we can imagine him imposing.

Suppose I have a distinct perception that two and two make four. The skeptic within me might just say, 'I doubt it. I withhold my assent to it.' If that is all he is saying, Descartes will not take him seriously, will not count that as calling my distinct perception into doubt. I can withhold assent, but why should I? So far the skeptic is indulging in mere sophomoric gainsaying. He hasn't offered a reason for doubting anything, much less a reason for doubting a distinct perception.

The skeptic says next, You should doubt your distinct perception, because it might be false. Perhaps two and two really make five.' He has now offered a reason, we might say. But it is not a good one. I can res- pond, 'How could two and two really make five, when we see a manifest contradiction in that supposition, when we perceive very distinctly that two and two make four.' So at least part of what disqualifies this skeptical move is that the skeptic has offered an hypothesis which cannot be distinctly perceived. The skeptic must offer some hypothesis upon which the belief in question would in fact be false, and the possibility that the hypothesis is true must be distinctly perceivable. There is no attacking the results of the most scrupulous possible use of reason unless with reasons which meet the same high standards. It would be irrational to doubt what is supremely rational for reasons extra-rational.

Now suppose the skeptic says, 'You should doubt that two and two make four, because it might be false. Perhaps you have been created by an evil demon so that you err even in those matters which you perceive most distinctly.' On the interpretation I am considering, what is important about this skeptical hypothesis is that it is complicated. We cannot tell straight off whether it is distinctly perceivable. Thus we must at least take it seriously provisionally, until we muster the resources we need to see whether it is distinctly perceivable. But only if it can be distinctly

7 HR I 148; AT VII 21

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perceived that possibly an evil demon exists will the skeptic have produced a good reason to doubt that what we distinctly perceive is true. Only then will he have made a serious claim on our attention. Only then would it be rational to doubt the deliverances of reason. And if Descartes can show that he cannot distinctly perceive the skeptic's hypothesis, then the skeptic can only ask us to doubt the products of scrupulous thinking on the basis of thinking which is necessarily second-rate; and that, no less than empty gainsaying, is an irrational demand.

IV

Although I think it is important to look at the skeptic's role in this way, I am not really satisfied with the interpretation of Descartes which has

emerged, because I think it faces a big textual difficulty. Now if the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation were successful at meeting the charge of circularity, I would not worry much about the textual difficulty. I do not, however, think that this interpretation successfully meets the charge of circularity, and so I think the textual difficulty it faces must count

decisively against it. Let me first point to the difficulty and then take up the question of circularity.

The Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation has Descartes doing two things in the Third Meditation proof of his creation by an all-perfect being. But Descartes does not let us know that he is doing two things. He sounds as if he is only doing one thing, namely, showing that it is true that his creator is perfect. Nor does he distinguish between two functions of the

proof in the second-best place, his replies to objections. There, too, he sounds as if he counters the skeptic by showing simply that his creator cannot really be malign because he must really be perfect.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how sharply the Frankfurt- Gewirth interpretation diverges from the impression Descartes gives in the relevant texts. Surely Descartes does not see himself first just display- ing a particular distinct perception. Surely from the start he is trying simply to discover who really created him. Surely he means his response to the skeptic simply to be, 'An evil demon couldn't have created me, because I must have been created by a perfect, non-deceiving being.'

If Descartes is doing two things, he is first answering a metaphysical question - Who created me? - and then using the answer to solve an

epistemological problem - Could all my distinct perceptions be false? Notice that it is not until the Fourth Meditation that Descartes says,

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[F]irst of all, I recognise it to be impossible that [God] should ever deceive me .... In the next place I experienced in myself a certain capacity for judging which I have doubtless received from God, like all the other things that I

possess; and as He could not desire to deceive me, it is clear that He has not given me a faculty that will lead me to err if I use it aright.8

So I think the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation runs counter to the most natural and straightforward reading of the texts.9 That alone is not grounds for dismissing it; good interpretations often require that we see a text in a radically new way. I also think the interpretation runs counter to Descartes' intentions in the texts. Even so, one might be willing to say his intentions were mixed, or he didn't understand them very well, if one were rescuing him from a fatal problem.

But I do not think the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation is a successful rescue operation. Let me explain why by building up a skeptical response to what, on that interpretation, Descartes has done. The skeptic starts out by saying, 'So what if you have no good reason to doubt that your distinct perceptions are true. So what if you cannot distinctly perceive that your creator is a deceiver. It might all the same be false that your distinct perceptions are true, because it might all the same be true that your creator is a deceiver.'10 Now so far, what the skeptic has said does not constitute grounds for doubting that distinct perceptions are true. So far, he has done no better than he did when he said we should doubt that two and two make four because perhaps they really make five.

But now he says, 'Before I raised the question of your creator, I didn't have any way to call into doubt your belief that two and two make four, except by saying that maybe they didn't. That, I grant you, was silly. But then I got you to agree that your very nature might be such that everything you distinctly perceive is false. Now, you still had no reason

8 HR 1 172; AT VII 53-4

9 In section 5, I claim also that the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation distorts other passages in the Meditations, but I am postponing that criticism, because I think the distortion is part of what is wrong with the original interpretation on which the problem of circularity arises .

10 This, I take it, is the problem Frankfurt raises (DDM, 179) which the truth-as- coherence interpretation is supposed to solve. I think that this isn't a legitimate problem (in its present form), and in any case I do not see how truth-as- coherence would solve it. One could just as well say, 'So what if you have no good reason to doubt that all your distinct perceptions cohere; it may all the same be false that they do (will).'

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to suppose that your nature was so radically defective. But then I reminded you that your nature depends on your creator. You agreed. And you agreed that a malevolent creator could and would give you a radically defective nature. Finally, I said perhaps your creator is malevolent. You said you would take that possibility seriously, at least provisionally. But by then it was too late for provisions. Although I

agree with you that we cannot distinctly perceive that our creator is a deceiver, still you have granted me everything I need to produce a reason for doubt you must take seriously. You have agreed that your faculty of distinct perception will not tend toward truth unless its cause is no deceiver. And you have agreed that the cause of your faculty of distinct

perception is some real thing independent from that faculty and its

perceptions. Does your faculty of distinct perception tend toward truth? You will never know, because you will never know the nature of its

creator, its cause, and that is because the best you can do is distinctly perceive that its creator is no deceiver. But your creator's real nature is

independent from your distinct perceptions. And because you will never know your creator, you must always doubt that your distinct perceptions are true/11

Let me elaborate in several ways on what the skeptic is saying here,

by considering some anti-skeptical objections. First, the skeptic is talking about 'knowing' in a very striking way. Up until now, on the Frankfurt- Gewirth interpretation, we have counted something as knowledge if it is a distinct perception we have no good reason to doubt. But the skeptic seems somehow to have shifted illicitly from talking about that to talking about some sort of hyperknowledge. Has he? Well, I think there is a

shift, but not an illicit one. Indeed, I think part of the skeptic's point is that what we have agreed to forces this sort of shift.

We started out counting something as knowledge if it is a distinct

perception we had no good reason to doubt. And not having a good reason to doubt amounted to not being able to perceive distinctly the

skeptic's specific scenario, that our creator is a deceiver. But the skeptic is no longer offering a specific scenario; he is now pointing to some

epistemological implications of what we have agreed is the general characterization of our metaphysical situation. And the implication of that characterization is that although there is no particular skeptical scenario which can be distinctly perceived, there is still a distinctly

11 Here the problem for Frankfurt's Descartes is (at minimum) that we distinctly perceive reason to doubt that our distinct perceptions do (will) cohere.

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perceivable reason to doubt that our distinct perceptions are true. Relative to that doubt, what we were calling knowledge isn't really knowledge. Knowledge is still distinct perception we have no good reason to doubt, only now what is being brought forward as a good reason to doubt has a different flavor. And the skeptic's new point is that given the agreed-upon facts, no distinct perception could count as knowledge.

One might object that still there is something peculiar about insisting that what should count as knowledge is something no one could ever have. There is something peculiar about this because no one should care or worry if it turns out that we don't have something we cannot have. It is as if we began by saying that no one really knows something unless he is omniscient, and then concluded we have a reason to doubt all can- didates for knowledge because we are not omniscient. Or, to put what I think is the same objection another way, the skeptic's new so-called reason to doubt doesn't after all amount to anything we should really count as a reason for doubt; he has only shown us that we should be more carefully modest about what we intend to defend from doubt.

But the anti-skeptic - or at least the anti-skeptic we have been talking about so far - cannot consistently disavow concern for what the skeptic is now saying. The skeptic has neither set up a straw man nor flourished a shadow weapon. It was the anti-skeptic who agreed that he would call his distinct perceptions into doubt if there is a distinctly perceivable reason to do so. And it was the anti-skeptic who agreed that whether his distinct perceptions are true depends on whether his creator is a deceiver. And it was the anti-skeptic who agreed that his creator is independent from his distinct perceptions.

He may certainly change his mind about what he will count as a good reason for doubt, but only at the cost of openly declaring that he no longer cares about knowing whether his distinct perceptions are true. He may, for example, say that after all he only wants to know whether his distinct perceptions have been so far coherent, and henceforth will take seriously only reasons to doubt that they have been. But this reveals that the anti-skeptic was never sincere in saying he wanted to investigate whether or not his distinct perceptions are true.

One might instead object that the anti-skeptic - or at least the anti- skeptic in Descartes - conceded too much when he allowed that he could distinctly perceive the various features of his situation the skeptic pointed to. After all, what is to count as a reason for doubt must still be distinctly perceivable, even thought it is now a characterization of a general situation and not a specific scenario that generates the reason for

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doubt. In particular, the skeptic requires that we say we can distinctly perceive that our creator may be other than what we distinctly perceive him to be. I have been talking about 'the skeptic' and 'the anti-skeptic/ but here I think I must talk about Descartes. After all, my objection to the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation should not rest on saying something Descartes would under no circumstances be prepared to say, especially since clear and distinct' is his term, not mine.

As it turns out, however, Descartes is willing to say just the right sort of thing. He says we can distinctly perceive that something may be other than what we distinctly perceive it to be. Indeed, he says we can distinctly perceive that something is other than what we distinctly perceive it to be. This way of talking arises in Descartes' exposition of the view that God created the eternal truths and could have created them differently from the way he did. He says,

... I know that God is the author of everything and that these truths are

something and consequently that He is their author. I say that I know this, not that I can conceive it or comprehend it; because it is possible to know that God is infinite and all-powerful although our soul, being finite, cannot comprehend or conceive Him. In the same way we can touch a mountain with our hands but we cannot put our arms around it as we could put them around a tree ... To

comprehend something is to embrace it in one's thought; to know something it

is sufficient to touch it with one's thought.12

We can distinctly perceive that God might have created different eternal

truths, even though what we distinctly perceive is that the eternal truths must be as they are. In other words, we can distinctly perceive that God's

omnipotence is other than what we distinctly perceive it to be. I want to be careful here. I am not saying that the Frankfurt-Gewirth

interpretation fails because Descartes held that God created the eternal truths. I find it difficult to see how Descartes could have both held that doctrine and written the Meditations, but that is another problem. Much less am I saying that Descartes explicitly intended the Meditations to reconcile the eternal-truths doctrine with the claim that we can have

metaphysical certainty about what we distinctly perceive. I am simply saying that the objection I have constructed contains no claims about distinct perception which Descartes would obviously have repudiated or would even have found foreign.

12 K 15; AT I 152

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Let me conclude this section of my paper by restating the way I think the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation fails to solve the problem of circularity. On that interpretation, the skeptic still has the resources to con- struct a good reason for doubting that distinct perceptions are true. And thus Descartes could know that his creator is no deceiver only if he could know that his distinct perceptions were true, and he could know that his distinct perceptions were true only if he already knew that his creator is no deceiver. The skeptic still has the resources he needs because he can point out that we need to know our cause and can't. We must grant that for us a gap separates our rational faculty from its creator. This matters; our concern must extend itself along the causal relation which bridges the gap, even though our knowledge can't.

V

I want now to argue for a different interpretation of Descartes, one which offers a different kind of solution to the problem of circularity and which, I think, squares better with the texts. I will be agreeing with Frankfurt and Gewirth that it is important to see what Descartes counts as a good reason for doubt. I do agree with them that a good reason must be distinctly perceivable; later on, I will argue that there is, for Descartes, an additional criterion which a good reason must meet. But I will be setting my remarks about good reasons in a very different con- text, and putting them to work in a very different way.

I want to read Descartes as saying that each premise of the Third Meditation argument is a distinct perception which cannot be impugned by the skeptic. Each premise is, as it were, demon-proof. The problem of circularity does not arise because we can be metaphysically certain about the premises before we achieve metaphysical certainty about the conclusion. We can then go on to secure metaphysical certainty about all our distinct perceptions by appealing to God's veracity.

This sort of interpretation would block the skeptical move fatal to the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation. On that interpretation, the anti- skeptic had to grant that his faculty of distinct perception would be per- vasively defective if it were the product of a malign creator. On this interpretation, Descartes discovers that not even the hypothesis of a supremely malign creator could call into doubt all his distinct perceptions. The demon-hypothesis could make most of them dubitable; especially worrisome, it could make dubitable our perceptions about

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mathematics and about what is essential to body. But there would still remain a core of distinct perceptions which, on the most powerful skeptical hypothesis, could not be doubted.

In order to argue for this interpretation, I want to do two things. First, I want to tie it to the text of the Meditations. Second, I want to tackle the enormous problem of why Descartes thought the causal principle which says a cause must contain what comes about in its effect is a demon-proof principle.

Let me begin tying my reading to the text by pointing out that it avoids the textual difficulty the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation faced. On my reading of Descartes, he is first answering the question who created him and then using his answer to show that all his distinct perceptions are true.

My reading also avoids an equally important textual difficulty, one faced by both the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation and the interpretation which gave rise to the original problem of circularity. Both inter-

pretations undermine the point of the Archimedes metaphor at the beginning of the Second Meditation and distort the reading which follows most naturally from attention to that metaphor. Descartes says,

... I shall proceed by setting aside all that in which the least doubt could be supposed to exist ... and I shall ever follow in this road until I have met with

something which is certain, or at least, if I can do nothing else, until I have learned for certain that there is nothing in the world that is certain. Archimedes, in order that he might draw the terrestrial globe out of its place, and transport it elsewhere, demanded only that one point should be fixed and

immoveable; in the same way I shall have the right to conceive high hopes if I am happy enough to discover one thing only which is certain and indubitable.13

Descartes sounds as if he is going to uncover some distinct perceptions which have a very special epistemological status, which are not called into doubt even by the evil demon hypothesis. And the metaphor further suggests that those perceptions are to play a very special methodological role, that they are to serve as a fulcrum, a 'fixed and immoveable' point by which Descartes can raise up the rest of his distinct

perceptions from doubt. But the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation and the original interpretation both suppose that no distinct perceptions have a special status.

13 HR I 149; AT VII 24

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Metaphors can, of course, be misleading, but Descartes goes on in the Second Meditation to confront various perceptions with the evil demon hypothesis and seems to be saying that even if that hypothesis is true, those perceptions also are true. Among these demon-resistant perceptions are 'I exist,' Thinking belongs to my nature' and all perceptions of the form, 1 am having an idea of '

The metaphor seems especially apt when one notices the crucial parts 'I exist' and 1 am having an idea of a perfect being' play in the proof that my creator is perfect. Descartes sounds as if he wants the premises of the Third Meditation proof to be demon-resistant, to be true even if the demon hypothesis is true.

One might, however, object to my reading by pointing to the beginning of the Third Meditation, where it seems Descartes wants to erase the impression we get from the Second Meditation. Four paragraphs into the Third Meditation Descartes reminds himself of the demon hypothesis and says,

... if I find that there is a God, I must also inquire whether He may be a deceiver; for while I am ignorant of this matter I do not seem to be able ever to be entirely certain of any other.14

This quotation seems to count against any reading on which Descartes says some distinct perceptions are demon-proof prior to the argument for God's existence.

But notice that Descartes says, 'I do not seem to be able ...' ('non videor ... posse'). He does not say he is unable to be certain of any other perceptions. But then why should it even seem to him that he cannot be certain of, say, the cogito? Well, he began the Third Meditation by iden- tifying distinctness as an essential characteristic of the cogito, and then he noticed that distinctness characterizes many of his other perceptions, too. His perceptions of simple mathematical propositions, for example, are distinct. In a passage of subtle interior dialogue, Descartes swings between saying that all his distinct perceptions are, like the cogito, certainly true and saying that all his distinct perceptions are, like the mathematical ones, dubitable. 'I do not seem to be able' is Descartes' precise way of registering his reaction to his astonishing position.

This way of understanding the troublesome quotation gains some further support from a remark Descartes makes a few paragraphs later.

14 HR 1 159; AT VII 36

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He introduces a new term, 'natural light/ and distinguishes between the indubitability of what this light reveals and his 'natural inclinations' toward belief. He says,

But these two things are very different; for what the natural light shows me cannot in any way be dubious (nullo modo dubia esse possunt), as, for exam-

ple, it has shown me that I am from the fact that I doubt, or other facts of the same kind.15

Now, it may be that Descartes is simply repeating something he has

already said, namely, that the 'natural inclination' to believe that sensa- tions picture the world is very different from the inclination to believe that distinct perceptions are true. But I do not think Descartes is again pointing to the 'psychological certainty' of distinct perceptions in general. He is introducing a new term; he is illustrating it with the cogito; and he is emphatically saying that what the natural light shows him 'cannot in

any way be dubious.' He seems, then, to be using the term, 'natural light/ to pick out a subset of his distinct perceptions, the subset containing demon-proof perceptions.16

If I am right in this speculation about the natural light, then the

passage I have just quoted not only reinforces my reading of the

previous, troublesome, passage but also directly supports my contention that for Descartes, some distinct perceptions are demon-proof prior to

15 HR 1 160; AT VII 38. On Gewirth's view, this passage seems 'contradictory to the

doubt which has preceded it' (CC, 392). Gewirth resolves the contradiction by

claiming that Descartes was raising metaphysical doubt in the earlier passage but

is here noting that some perceptions resist psychological doubt. We need not go

through these interpretative manoeuvres if we realize that Descartes earlier says

metaphysical doubt only seems to be all-encompassing.

16 Alan Gewirth has argued forcefully in conversation that the natural light is

nothing but the general faculty of distinct perception. He points out first that

Descartes usually does does contrast sensation (and the beliefs it compels) with

distinct perception in general (and the beliefs it compels). Second, he asks why Descartes did not simply contrast distinct perception in general with the sup-

posedly narrower notion of perception by the natural light. Third, he points out

that elsewhere (for example, in Part I of the Principles) Descartes plainly uses

'natural light' to mean 'faculty of distinct perception.' I have no direct reply to

these objections. Looking just at the use of 'natural light' in the Third Meditation, I find the evidence in favor of my suggestion to be counterbalanced by these ob-

jections. But looking at all the texts and issues about doubt and certainty in the

first three Meditations, I find my suggestion plausible.

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the argument for God's existence. In particular, I am arguing that for Descartes, the premises of the argument are demon-proof. Neatly enough, the term 'natural light' appears for the second time at the in- troduction of the causal containment principle, and every occurrence of it later in the Third Meditation is connected either with some conse- quence of the containment principle or with some special-status claim from the Second Meditation.17 But those are exactly the perceptions which appear in the Third Meditation argument for God's existence.

In summary, then, I am interpreting Descartes as saying that the premises in the argument for God's existence cannot be doubted even on the evil-demon hypothesis. So far, I have argued that this interpretation, unlike Frankfurt's and Gewirth's, preserves the order of Descartes' reflec- tions and the point of the Archimedes metaphor. I have tried to make plausible my reading of the apparently troublesome passage toward the beginning of the Third Meditation, and I have suggested that Descartes' subsequent remarks about the natural light tie in neatly with my interpretation. I think, then, that my interpretation has a solid textual basis.

At this point, the natural question to ask is, 'How could Descartes have thought that those premises are all demon-proof?' To answer it, I want first to look at the Third Meditation argument and then to focus on its causal premises. After briefly exploring Descartes' notion of causation, I will explain what I think Descartes means by a good reason for doubt and show how that conception of skepticism enters into my general interpretation of Descartes' intentions.

Let us look at the argument. It runs, I think, like this:18

1. Everything has a cause.

2. A cause must contain everything that comes about in its effect, in the same or a higher form.

3. The complete cause of an idea must have at least as much formal reality as the idea has of objective reality.

4. I exist.

17 HR I 162, 163, 165, 167, 168, 171; AT VII 40, 42, 44, 47, 49, 52

18 HR I 162 ff.; AT VII 40 ff.

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5. I have an idea of a perfect being.

6. This idea has infinite objective reality.

7. Therefore, the cause of this idea (or, the cause of me) has infinite formal reality.

8. I do not have infinite formal reality.

9. Therefore, God, a perfect being other than myself, exists.

Let me make a few remarks about the argument and the way I have put it. I have listed both 1 exist' and 'I have an idea of a perfect being' as premises, and I have alternated 'the cause of this idea' and 'the cause of me/ My reason for doing so is to forestall worries about whether the Third Meditation contains one argument for God's existence or two. Nothing I am going to say is affected by how many arguments there are. I have listed 'Everything has a cause' as a premise, even though Descartes does not explicitly mention it, in hopes of clarifying some of what will follow. But again, I do not think anything will hang on this. I have also deviated from the text by listing 'A cause must contain everything ...'instead of 'A cause must contain at least as much reality ...'I think in fact that Descartes uses both these principles in the Meditations. I have listed the stronger one because a passage I want to cite later refers to it, but I feel no qualms about doing this, because Descartes is referring to the Third Meditation proof in the passage I will be citing. One last observa- tion: The causal premise about ideas is supposed to follow fairly directly from the first two causal premises, so I will not be giving it any attention.

The special certainty of some of these premises is supposed to be secured in the Second Meditation. Even if I am created by an evil demon, he cannot make me go wrong about 'I exist' or about 'I have an idea of a perfect being.'19 And Descartes seems to think that the incorrigibility of

self-knowledge extends also to This idea has infinite objective reality' and 'I do not have infinite formal reality.' I need only inspect what goes

19 There is, of course, much to be said about exactly how these premises are supposed to resist skepticism, but that lies outside the scope of this paper. As should be clear by now, I do not think these premises are merely 'psychologically' certain. Indeed, I do not find much use for the distinction between (mere) psychological certainty and metaphysical certainty.

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on within me to see that those premises are true, and not even a malign demon could get in between me and myself in my self -inspection.

But what about the causal principles? One might grant that Descartes did think the causal premises would have to be true even on the demon hypothesis, without seeing in the least how he could have come to think so. Perhaps I can suggest why Descartes gave the causal premises such a special place. What I would like to do first is to look at two texts, the one a passage in the Second Replies, the other a portion of the First Medita- tion. Then I will spell out how, on the basis of these texts, we can see why the causal premises are supposed to be in some sense demon-proof.

Descartes is asked about the containment principle by the authors of the second set of objections. They object that animals and plants are caused by earth, sun and water but contain something more than those causes contain, namely, life. Now of course this sort of counter-example does not impress Descartes, who believes that the existence, nature and motions of animals and plants are to be explained by exactly the same sort of mechanistic principles that explain the existence, nature and motions of earth, sun and water. He deprecates the counter-example fairly gently and adds that it would be irrational 'to make this an occasion for doubting a truth which, as I shall directly explain in greater detail, the light of nature itself makes manifest/20 A few paragraphs later, the explanation appears.

That there is nothing in the effect, that has not existed in a similar or in some higher form in the cause, is a first principle than which none clearer can be entertained. The common truth, Trom nothing, nothing comes' is identical with it. For, if we allow that there is something in the effect which did not exist in the cause, we must also grant that this something has been created out of nothing; it is not clear why nothing cannot be the cause of a thing, unless by this: the fact that in such a cause there would not be the same thing as existed in the effect.21

I take it Descartes is saying that the containment principle is equivalent to the 'common truth/ Trom nothing, nothing comes/ And Descartes also thinks that Trom nothing, nothing comes' is equivalent to Tvery event has a cause/ So one point to notice is that the first premise of the argument I outlined earlier is, from Descartes' point of view, superfluous.

20 HR II 34; AT VII 134

21 HR II 34-5; AT VII 135

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Now, the general idea behind these equivalent principles is that things cannot pop into existence. Descartes is also saying that modifications of things cannot pop into existence; a new modification cannot just happen. What follows from these impossibilities? For Descartes, who set his face

against scholastic potentialities, matters, forms, and ends, it follows that

things and their modifications must in some sense pre-exist in the other

things or modifications which are their efficient causes. If we start thinking about the equivalence of these principles and the

ideas which fund them, we can, I believe, begin to understand the special status Descartes gives to the causal premises in the Third Meditation

argument. First, I think we can at least understand someone who says it is rock-bottom that things cannot just happen. And then we can understand that for Descartes, that is to say that every event has a cause, and that is to say that from nothing, nothing comes, and that is to say that a cause must contain what comes about in its effect.

But one still might want to ask why the causal premises should for Descartes be any more rock-bottom than '2-1-2=4/ Why should they be in some sense demon-proof?

To answer that question, let us turn to the First Meditation, to see just how Descartes invokes the deceiver. He considers the truths of arithmetic and geometry and says, 'it does not seem possible that truths so apparent can be suspected of any falsity/22 After the Second Meditation, Descartes will be able to say that what makes my ideas of mathematical propositions 'so apparent' is their distinctness. They are, let us say, internally unimpeachable.

Descartes therefore must look to something external to them in order to call them into doubt; he looks to their cause, to him by whom I have been created. He raises the possibility that his creator causes him to have ideas which are internally unimpeachable but nonetheless false. And he

replies to the atheist by arguing that this possibility can be raised on any account of 'my origin.'23 Indeed, in terms prefiguring the containment

principle, he argues that the possibility is even more plausible on a non- theistic account of my origin than on a theistic account.

I believe we must read Descartes as thinking that the only way to produce a good reason for doubting ideas which are internally in order is to sketch an hypothesis about their (external) cause, an hypothesis on

22 HR 1 147; AT VII 20

23 HR I 147; AT VII 21

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which their cause brings it about that they are false. Descartes will not take seriously a skeptic who says, 'I do not care how or whether distinct ideas are caused; all I want to say is that it is possible they just happen to be false/ For Descartes this is nothing but a variety of what I earlier called empty gainsaying. Someone who grants that an idea is in order internally and causally has no good reason for doubting it.

Putting together this reading of the First Meditation and the passage about the containment principle in the Second Replies, I think we can see why Descartes assumed that the containment principle had a very special status. The principle is demon-proof in at least this sense: The skeptic cannot both deny the principle and produce the demon hypothesis. If the skeptic denies the principle, then he denies himself his only chance for being taken seriously, for producing a good reason to doubt distinct perceptions. The containment principle is more rock-bottom than '2 -1-2= 4' because it is so essentially bound up with causation, and causation is so essentially bound up with serious skepticism.24

I now want to explore in more detail the connection between the containment principle and skepticism. Descartes of course has nothing ex- plicit to say about this connection, and so as interpretation, what I am about to say is speculative. I can see two ways in which to describe the connection between the containment principle and skepticism.

First, let us start with the bare equivalence between the containment principle and the principle that every event has a cause. Suppose that what Descartes requires is that the skeptic see the necessity of providing a causal skeptical hypothesis. If the skeptic denies that the containment principle is true, he allows that an event need not have a cause. But if he allows that an event need not have a cause, he will not be able to see the need for offering a causal skeptical hypothesis. For if the skeptic thinks an event need not have a cause, he will say, 'Maybe it just so happens that my distinct ideas are as they are and are false. There is no need to

24 I would like to find a notion of being demon-proof that covers both the causal premises and the premises introduced in the Second Meditation. Perhaps the following will do: p is demon-proof if (a) I distinctly perceive that p is true and (b) in any serious attempt to doubt p, I must presuppose that p is true. But I am not sure how well this captures the special status Descartes gives the cogito, and of course the notion of presupposition involved needs a great deal of elucidation.

I should mention also that I think the notion of causation is also essential to Descartes' dream argument and that recognizing this helps to explain why Descartes answers the dream argument as he does in the Sixth Meditation. But elaboration of this point lies beyond the scope of this paper.

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suppose that anything caused this sad situation; much less is there a need to offer a particular causal hypothesis on which this situation would arise. All one need say is that this situation is after all possible and that it may just happen, all uncaused, to be our situation.' So if the skeptic is to see why he cannot say that, he will see that every event has a cause, and he will be unable to deny the containment principle.

What bothers me about this line is that Descartes would be requiring the skeptic not just to meet a condition, but to see the need for the condition. Why shouldn't the skeptic simply meet the condition by producing the deceiver hypothesis, without granting that it is necessary to meet it? Then he can put forward the deceiver hypothesis while denying that every event has a cause.

The second line avoids this problem but at the cost of requiring a strong connection between the containment principle and the very notion of causation. Suppose Descartes not only thinks the containment

principle is equivalent to the principle that every event has a cause but also thinks it is part of the meaning of 'cause' that no event could be caused unless every event is caused. We could imagine him thinking, for ex-

ample, that if an event is necessitated by the cause it has, then necessarily events have causes. Although I am a little uneasy about it, I am inclined to endorse this second line. While Descartes never says it is part of the

meaning of cause' that every event have one, I think that that is at least

compatible with everything he says about causation. The outcome, on this line, is that the skeptic cannot even meet the

condition that he offer a causal skeptical hypothesis, unless he grants that the containment principle is true. He cannot say, for example, that

perhaps an evil demon causes me to go wrong, unless he grants that

every event has a cause; but that is to grant that the containment principle is true. So he must grant that the containment principle is true in order to generate a serious skeptical hypothesis, and the containment

principle is in that sense demon-proof.25 In summary, I am suggesting that once we understand the

significance the causal principles had for Descartes and the role they must play even for the skeptic, the way is clear for a very natural reading of the Second and Third Meditations, a reading upon which the problem of circularity does not arise. Descartes can be metaphysically certain of

25 Again, the notion of presupposition that would be at work in an argument like this is far from clear.

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some perceptions before he is metaphysically certain that his creator is no deceiver, and each of the premises of the Third Meditation argument has that special status. After he achieves metaphysical certainty that his creator is no deceiver, he can rely on the divine guarantee for metaphysical certainty about the rest of his distinct perceptions.

Let me finish by responding to two objections one might raise against the reading I have produced. First, one might grant that I have produced a more natural reading of the first three Meditations, but insist that at least I owe some sort of reading of other passages, ones in the Fifth Meditation26 and in the Replies27 which both Frankfurt and Gewirth account for so carefully. This, I think, is entirely true, but I do not think it will be difficult to produce the required reading. Roughly, whatever else he is saying in the Second Replies, Descartes is excepting the cogito from the sweeping claim in the Fifth Meditation that we could know nothing with certainty unless we were first aware that God existed/ And the 'most evident things' which the atheist 'cannot be sure' of are mathematical propositions.28 In both places Descartes explicitly connects the 'knowledge' which requires 'knowledge of the true God' with mathematics.29 Saying this is obviously not saying enough, but I hope it suggests that the requisite reading is far from impossible to produce.30

Second, one might urge, as I did against the Frankfurt-Gewirth interpretation, that this one also fails to solve the problem of circularity. For, one might say, the skeptic can still reply that for all we know, everything, including our ideas, just happens, is without cause. Thus for all we know, the containment principle is false, even though we distinctly perceive it to be true.

26 HR I 183-5; AT VII 69-71

27 HR II 38-9; AT VII 140-1; HR II 114-15; AT VII 245-6

28 HR II 39; AT VII 141

29 HR I 185; AT VII 69-70

30 Roughly, I would want to argue that Descartes starts out by distinguishing between perceptions like two and two make four (distinct but not known by the light of nature) and the cogito (distinct and known by the light of nature). Then he associates that distinction with a distinction between perceptions which can and cannot enter into a systematic science. Finally, he associates that distinction with the distinction between perceptions which can and cannot be remembered without attending to their proofs. Each of these associations is natural enough, I would areue. but the overall effect is misleading.

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But this objection does not have the same force against this interpretation as the other objection had against the other interpretation. First, the other objection worked within the requirements a skeptic must meet; the other objection put forward a distinctly perceivable problem. This objection violates the requirement which has emerged, that the skeptic produce a causal explanation of our ideas. Second, I argued that the other objection was not one which would be foreign to Descartes. I scarcely can think of anything more foreign to Descartes than the thought that things just happen.31

December, 1981

31 I am grateful to many people for their helpful criticisms of this paper. I want

especially to thank Burton Dreben, Alan Gewirth, Israel Scheffler and Sam Scheffler.

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Skepticism and the Cartesian Circle